1
The American economy is fac- ing a plunge into uncharted wa- ters. Economists say there is little doubt that the nation is headed into a recession because of the co- ronavirus pandemic, with busi- nesses shutting down and Ameri- cans being shut in. But it is harder to foresee the bottom and how long it will take to climb back. Greg Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, says the economy is assured of a recession — at least two consecutive quar- ters of economic decline — with output falling 0.4 percent in the first quarter and 12 percent in the second. That would be the biggest quarterly contraction on record, but Goldman Sachs upped the ante on Friday, saying it expected a 24 percent drop in the second quarter. “This is not just a blip,” Mr. Daco said of the outlook. “We’ve never experienced something like this.” The abruptness of the descent — and the near-lockdown of major cities — is unheard-of in advanced economies, more akin to wartime privation than to the downturn that accompanied the financial crisis more than a decade ago, or even the Great Depression. “Even during previous reces- sions,” noted Ellen Zentner, chief U.S. economist at Morgan Stanley, “no one’s been told you can’t go outside or you can’t gather.” Smaller companies will be hit harder than large ones because of their limited access to credit and less cash in the bank. “There will be a swath of small businesses that simply won’t be able to sur- vive this,” Ms. Zentner added. The result is an economy that has gone from full-speed-ahead in January to a full-on freeze. Econo- A Recession Appears Certain as a Virus Wreaks Havoc By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ Continued on Page 11 TRACKING AN OUTBREAK In mid-January, a few weeks be- fore the Iowa caucuses, Senator Bernie Sanders’s pollster offered a stark prognosis for the cam- paign: Mr. Sanders was on track to finish strong in the first three nominating states, but Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s powerful support from older African-Americans could make him a resilient foe in South Carolina and beyond. The pollster, Ben Tulchin, in a meeting with campaign aides, rec- ommended a new offensive to in- fluence older black voters, accord- ing to three people briefed on his presentation. The data showed two clear vulnerabilities for Mr. Biden: his past support for over- hauling Social Security, and his authorship of a punitive criminal justice law in the 1990s. But the suggestion met with re- sistance. Some senior advisers ar- gued that it wasn’t worth divert- ing resources from Iowa and New Hampshire, people familiar with the campaign’s deliberations said. Others pressed Mr. Tulchin on what kind of message, exactly, would make voters rethink their support for the most loyal ally of the first black president. Crucially, both Mr. Sanders and his wife, Jane, consistently ex- pressed reservations about going negative on Mr. Biden, preferring to stick with the left-wing policy message they have been pressing for 40 years. The warnings about Mr. Biden proved prescient: Two months lat- er, Mr. Sanders is now all but van- quished in the Democratic presi- dential race, after Mr. Biden res- urrected his campaign in South Carolina and built an overwhelm- ing coalition of black voters and white moderates on Super Tues- day. While Mr. Sanders has not ended his bid, he has fallen far be- hind Mr. Biden in the delegate count and has taken to trumpeting his success in the battle of ideas Mistakes and Internal Strife Hobbled Sanders Campaign By ALEXANDER BURNS and JONATHAN MARTIN Senator Bernie Sanders is far behind in the delegate count. ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES Continued on Page 23 KIRKLAND, Wash. — Loretta Rapp, 79, was easy to spot as she zipped through Life Care Center nursing home in her electric wheelchair, dressed in one of her bright muumuus. It had been hard for her to leave her apartment after she had a bad fall last year. But she was a no- nonsense woman who had raised three children, and she was trying to make the best of things. She went to physical therapy. She de- voured detective novels. At the skilled-nursing facility tucked next to a row of Douglas firs in suburban Seattle, she was elected president of the residents’ council. Life Care made an effort to keep things fun. There were shopping excursions to the Fred Meyer and lunch trips to Olive Garden, a re- cent afternoon with “cute and cud- dly animals.” The Honky Tonk Sweethearts, a country group, came in for a show early in Febru- ary. Ms. Rapp spent her days buzzing the hallways, visiting newcomers and cheering up bed- bound friends. Then people started getting sick. Not sick as what happens all the time in a nursing home, the bad flus and septic infections and old bones that will not heal. This was different. In the last few days of February, people’s temperatures started going off the charts. Some could not breathe. Then came The Rapid Road From Fevers to Final Goodbyes By JACK HEALY and SERGE F. KOVALESKI At Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., 35 people who tested positive for the coronavirus died. GRANT HINDSLEY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Continued on Page 14 ROME — As Italy’s coronavirus infections ticked above 400 cases and deaths hit the double digits, the leader of the governing Demo- cratic Party posted a picture of himself clinking glasses for “an aperitivo in Milan,” urging people “not to change our habits.” That was on Feb. 27. Not 10 days later, as the toll hit 5,883 infections and 233 dead, the party boss, Nicola Zingaretti, posted a new video, this time informing Italy that he, too, had the virus. Italy now has more than 53,000 recorded infections and more than 4,800 dead, and the rate of in- crease keeps growing, with more than half the cases and fatalities coming in the past week. On Sat- urday, officials reported 793 addi- tional deaths, by far the largest single-day increase so far. Italy has surpassed China as the coun- try with the highest death toll, be- coming the epicenter of a shifting pandemic. The government has sent in the army to enforce the lockdown in Lombardy, the northern region at the center of the outbreak, where bodies have piled up in churches. On Friday night, the authorities tightened the nationwide lock- down, closing parks, banning out- door activities including walking or jogging far from home. On Saturday night, Prime Min- ister Giuseppe Conte announced another drastic step in response to what he called the country’s most difficult crisis since the Sec- ond World War: Italy will close its factories and all production that is not absolutely essential, an enor- mous economic sacrifice intended to contain the virus and protect lives. “The state is here,” he said in an effort to reassure the public. But the tragedy of Italy now stands as a warning to its Euro- Early Missteps Set Italy’s Path To Catastrophe This article is by Jason Horowitz, Emma Bubola and Elisabetta Povoledo. Chairs are spaced far apart at Milan’s city hall, Palazzo Marino. Italy has overtaken China as the country with the highest death toll. ALESSANDRO GRASSANI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Continued on Page 8 WASHINGTON — During his campaign for the White House in 2016, President Trump’s advisers briefly tried to run through with him how he would address a large- scale disaster if he won. What, for instance, would he have done dur- ing Hurricane Katrina? “I would have fixed that,” Mr. Trump replied with certitude, re- ferring to the government’s bun- gled rescue and recovery efforts, according to a campaign official who was present for the ex- change. “I would have come up with a much better response.” How? He did not say. He just as- serted it would have been better and advisers did not press him to elaborate. Mr. Trump is no stranger to cri- sis. He has spent a lifetime grap- pling with bankruptcy, fending off creditors, evading tax collectors, defending lawsuits, deflecting regulators, spinning reporters and dueling with estranged wives, usually coming out ahead, at least as he defines it. But these were cri- ses of his own creation involving human adversaries he knew how to confront. Nothing in his back- ground in business, entertain- ment or multiple marriages pre- pared him for the coronavirus pandemic now threatening Amer- ica’s health and wealth. Mr. Trump’s performance on the national stage in recent weeks has put on display the traits that Democrats and some Republicans consider so jarring — the pro- found need for personal praise, the propensity to blame others, the lack of human empathy, the penchant for rewriting history, the disregard for expertise, the distor- tion of facts, the impatience with scrutiny or criticism. For years, skeptics expressed concern about how he would handle a genuine crisis, and now they know. “When he’s faced a problem, he has sought to somehow cheat or fix the outcome ahead of time so that he could construct a narra- tive that showed him to be the win- ner,” said Michael D’Antonio, a Trump Is Faced With Crisis Too Big for Big Talk By PETER BAKER and MAGGIE HABERMAN A Lifetime of Conflict, and Now an Unseen, Genuine Threat Continued on Page 12 A Russian state company is building reactors across the world, reaping for Moscow profits and influence. PAGE 17 INTERNATIONAL 17-20 Nuclear Offer Hard to Refuse President Trump’s top officials are divided on whether to ramp up military action in the region. PAGE 20 Conflicting Advice Over Iran With too many animals on public lands, the federal wild horse program is short of money or easy solutions. PAGE 21 NATIONAL 21-23 Mustangs Out of Control A flu-ravaged nation managed to hold an election in 1918: not without incident, but with democracy intact. PAGE 22 Voting, Now? We Did It Before When Gabriel Jiménez used his passion to build the Maduro regime a digital coin, called the Petro, he nearly paid for it with his life. PAGE 1 SUNDAY BUSINESS Venezuelan Coder in Peril The economy relies on thousands of local operations that need a lifeline, Sendhil Mullainathan writes. PAGE 8 Small Businesses Need Help Maureen Dowd PAGE 9 SUNDAY REVIEW Digital dance raves. Streaming sound- baths. Book readings by phone. The housebound are nimbly pivoting to virtual social gatherings. PAGE 1 SUNDAY STYLES Now on a Screen Near You Venerable museums closed by the pandemic should seize the moment to take stock of themselves — and change, Holland Cotter writes. PAGE 12 ARTS & LEISURE A Manifesto for Museums U(D547FD)v+=!?!/!$!" Husky-voiced Kenny Rogers, 81, sold more than 100 million records. His hits included “The Gambler,” “Lady” and “Islands in the Stream.” PAGE 25 OBITUARIES 25-27 Country Music Megastar SPECIAL SECTION Here are an- swers to your basic questions about life under the coronavirus. OLYMPICS Athletes are question- ing organizers’ insistence that the Games go on. SPORTSSUNDAY A QUIET CITY New York became eerily empty as restrictions in- creasingly took hold. PAGE 6 President Trump on Saturday sought to assure an anxious American public that help was on the way to overwhelmed hospi- tals, and that private companies had agreed to provide desperately needed medical supplies to fight the fast-spreading coronavirus. But Mr. Trump resisted appeals from state and local officials and hospital administrators for more aggressive action, saying he would not compel companies to make face masks and other gear to protect front-line health work- ers from the virus. Speaking at a White House briefing with Mr. Trump, Vice President Mike Pence said the federal government had placed orders for “hundreds of millions” of the N-95 face masks that can shield medical workers from the virus. Mr. Trump said the clothing company Hanes was among those that had been enlisted to start churning out masks, although the company said they would not be the N-95 masks that are most ef- fective in protecting medical workers. Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Pence would say when the masks would be ready. And it is unclear whether enough new masks and other protective gear will be avail- able before health care facilities start getting overwhelmed by a flood of infected patients. More than 21,000 cases of the coro- navirus have been confirmed in the United States, and that num- ber is expected to soar in coming weeks. As more of the nation goes into an unprecedented lockdown — businesses shuttered, one in four A RACE TO DELIVER CRITICAL SUPPLIES TO MEDICAL TEAMS Trump Resists Use of War Act to Compel Companies’ Help This article is by Rachel Abrams, Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Andrew Jacobs, Vanessa Friedman and Mi- chael Rothfeld. Continued on Page 15 THE MAGAZINE Senator Sanders remained steadfast in his vision, and forced a party’s reckoning. From the elegantly austere to the joy- fully overstuffed, the Design Issue looks at spaces that play with adding and taking away volume. T MAGAZINE Space, Form, Line Thomas Mallon reviews “The Mirror and the Light,” the final book in a series that began with “Wolf Hall.” PAGE 1 BOOK REVIEW Hilary Mantel Is Back Late Edition VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,640 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, MARCH 22, 2020 Today, sunshine and patchy clouds, a chilly day, high 46. Tonight, partly cloudy, low 36. Tomorrow, consider- able amounts of clouds, rain, high 44. Weather map is on Page 24. $6.00
